Hard Money Digest July 24 | STRATO
Summary
STRATO shares a 2-minute Hard Money Weekly Digest covering major shifts: Chinese banks halted retail leveraged paper gold, ADGM legally recognized Tether Gold, the PBOC added about 15 tonnes in June, Ondo Finance secured a FINRA route for tokenized US stocks, and the London Stock Exchange plans on-chain market moves. Essential for members tracking gold, tokenization, and market infrastructure changes.
Hard Money Weekly Digest | July 24th
This week's HardFi news in just 2 minutes
🏅 Gold: up +1.95%
🥈 Silver: up +5.52%
- China ended retail paper gold trading: Today, ICBC, the world's largest bank by assets, along with Postal Savings Bank, Ping An Bank, and China Guangfa Bank, halted retail leveraged paper gold and silver products linked to the Shanghai Gold Exchange, a wind-down the banks announced in late June.
Physical gold, accumulation plans, gold ETFs, and institutional exchange trading all stay open. The change strips leverage and synthetic claims from retail hands and leaves the metal itself available to everyone.
- Tokenized Gold Gets Its First Legal Home: Legal recognition is what turned tokenized treasuries into a financial instrument, and gold just got its first ruling of that kind.
On July 20, the Abu Dhabi Global Market recognized Tether Gold as an Accepted Spot Commodity, the first time a major financial center has defined tokenized gold in law. Regulated firms there can now custody, trade, and settle the token under local rules.
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China's gold-buying streak reached 20 months: The People's Bank of China added about 15 tonnes in June, its largest monthly purchase since 2023, taking reserves to 2,346 tonnes. It bought straight through the drawdown, part of a reserve-diversification push running since November 2024.
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Tokenized stocks got a licensed US route: On July 23, Ondo Finance's subsidiary Oasis Pro Markets secured FINRA authorization to offer tokenized equities, ETFs, mutual funds, and IPO-linked products to US institutional and retail investors under SEC and FINRA oversight. It is the first licensed path to put American shares on-chain for American buyers.
Until now, every tokenized-stock product had to route around the US retail market.
- The London Stock Exchange Moves to Copy On-Chain Markets: A 300-year-old exchange rebuilding itself for round-the-clock trading, copying tokenized markets.
Plans surfaced July 20 for a separate overnight venue running 5:00pm to 7:50am London time, targeted for the first half of 2027 and starting with more than 2,600 exchange-traded products. Gold and silver already trade that way on STRATO.
- Tokenized RWAs pulled back to $34.7 billion: Tracked on-chain value of tokenized real-world assets slipped to $34.67 billion on July 22 from a peak of $35.2 billion, even as Wall Street firms kept expanding their on-chain offerings. Treasuries remain the largest slice at $15.9 billion, with commodities at $8.3 billion, led by tokenized gold. The pullback landed the same week the products kept multiplying, which reads like consolidation rather than retreat.
RWAs keep accelerating. Tokenization is inevitable...and accelerating.
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